and tomorrow Integration and ID management Integration is another major trend in the access control market, for example between locks, readers, intrusion, security cameras and video management systems. Vanderbilt recently cited statistics from a recent survey that showed 36 percent of access control installations in educational settings now include video or intrusion, a trend that the company says is reflected in customer demand. An integrated, cloudbased access control and video management solution allows users to seamlessly monitor access activity and link events at doors with integrated video. Thomas Schultz from Assa Abloy thinks that the question of standards and integration is only beginning to be addressed. He says: “Security professionals – from our survey data and anecdotally – recognise the importance of integrating multiple security functions within a single environment. The whole ‘smart building’ paradigm hangs on doing this well. The easiest, most cost-effective route to integrated systems is via open platforms and agreed standards.” Data-driven decisions Thomas Schultz also states that open standards make scalingup more cost-effective and future-proof large investments in access control. He says: ”Procurement is about the long run. Our industry’s future will include better interoperability between building management systems.” Dahn Sadarangani sees the growing interest in alternative use cases of identity management beyond just security as the biggest access control trend for the high-end market. He says: “A good example of this is building occupancy management, according to a recent study the majority of offices around the world are 50 per cent under-utilised.” Dahn Sadarangani also stresses that a number of factors influence the modern work environment, including changing work styles, mobile technologies and shifting business needs. Building occupancy management provides insights and enables data-driven decisions on the scaling and repurposing of office space. He says: “Building occupancy management can provide the real-time location of any individual meaning in the event of an emergency, this gives an instant indication for security personnel and first responders over who is still in the building, and on which floor they are on.” Set up exclusion zones Furthermore, he says that coupling building occupancy management with physical access control can also elevate building security to another level. For example, the building occupancy management system can be calibrated to set up exclusion zones that alert security staff when certain individuals enter a prohibited zone. “Additionally, automated alerts and event notifications can be set up for when a specific person or group has either entered or left a designated area”, he says. In fact, we do detect fast-growing interest in mobile credentials: unlocking a door with a smartphone, in other words. Thomas Schulz Old cards and future technology Tom Rockliff from Johnson Controls does not think that cards will remain as a credential in the long run. He says: “We have a card in our hand, we have a card in our eye, and I have a credential in my watch and in my phone. So, I think the market for physical cards will decline, not yet, but it is just about to start decline.” Except the convenience of not having to carry around cards, he points out that there is a carbon footprint to consider as well. But there are also security reasons for why cards, or at least some of them, might vanish. Tom Rockliff says: “Wiegand and other technologies that can be hacked, they can only exist in the residential market in the future. Card cloning and Wiegand sniffing and all the different types of activity to get into those lower technologies is making that market very difficult.” OSDP (Open Supervised Device Protocol) is one of the more secure access control communications protocols that has gained traction lately. It is much more secure than old protocols like Wiegand and protects readers against hacking using AES-128 encryption. More biometrics Biometrics is another field within access control that is projected to grow. For example, a market research report from Marketsandmarkets shows an estimated growth from 16.8 billion dollars from 2018 to 41.8 billion in 2023, at a compound annual growth rate of almost 20 per cent. Demand from the travel and immigration market is forecast to hold the largest share of the biometrics system market. Tom Rockliff stresses that Bluetooth low energy and mobile credentials are becoming a much more popular requirement, but also biometrics. He says: “Facial recognition seems to be the preferred flavour of the moment. It is usually for high security applications like banking and military. We have been successful with a couple of deployments now in the financial sector and high security for perimeter protection and buildings. Once inside a perimeter, people are using a card, but in the actual crossover from public to private, facial recognition is a success now.” Main adoption Dahn Sadarangani stresses that biometrics have rapidly expanded into our daily lives, as millions of people utilise fingerprints to unlock their mobile phones, or access cash through ATMs. He says: “This mainstream adoption is also driving the increasing demand for biometrics in physical access control systems, as it offers increased protection and convenience. Using fingerprint biometrics for physical access security offers customers convenience as fingerprints are unique, cannot be forgotten, lost or stolen.” dete kto r in te r n at i on al • 1 5